A certain perspective
by squarey
Summary: A Logan and Goren fiction. Ch 3.
1. Chapter 1

I sat on the floor of my kindergarten classroom with my back against the wall. My knees were pulled tightly up against my chest and I could see the shiny polished bright pink surface of my bare toes poking out from underneath my long skirt. I imagined the happy, eager faces of the 15 little ones in my class, sitting in a circle smiling up at me. They had long since departed from school. Well, that is, 14 of them had departed. One of them, Lucas Yoder, was noticeably absent today. I tried to breathe in, but I couldn't, my chest was tight. I could feel the tears burning in my eyes. I had been teaching kindergarten for 10 years, five of them here in this well regarded private school in New York. In the entire decade I had been teaching, nothing as horrible as this had ever happened to any of the children in my classroom. I placed my forehead against my knees and closed my eyes.

I had no idea how long I'd been sitting there, hugging myself as I leaned against the wall, when I heard my classroom door open. I assumed it was my principal, Noah Lawson, coming to check on me, to send me home. When whoever entered had not said anything, I realized that it probably wasn't Noah. I looked up to find two very tall men in suits were looking down at me.

"Mrs. Royer?" asked the one with the dark hair and light eyes." Detectives Logan and Goren, NYPD." He continued, and they both flashed their badges. I assumed he was Logan, since he presented his name first. I watched the one named Goren start to slowly move around my classroom, looking at the children's artwork on the walls, the names pasted to the tables identifying where they sat, the treasures given to me by the children proudly displayed on my desk. He would pause every so often. I watched him and each time he came across Lucas Yoder's artwork, he would pause and examine it more closely. He moved on toward my desk and picked up picture of an airplane soaring through a sunny sky that Lucas had drawn me and proudly signed.

"Yes." I looked back at Detective Logan, letting him know that I was Ms. Royer.

"We have a few questions about one of your students," Detective Logan offered, pulling out a small pad of paper and twiddling his pen in his right hand. I watched the movements of the pen, almost hypnotized by the simplicity of the back and forth.

"Yes," I said the word again, my eyes shifting back to Goren, who had returned to the wall of art that I had updated last week. He had his head cocked to one side and his left hand lifted to run his fingers across the images my students had created of a hot air balloon race. The children's drawings were from a book we were reading about hot air balloons. Each masterpiece was artfully designed on colorful pieces of paper. Some of the children had used crayons, some magic markers, and some were rendered with the bright colors of paint.

"Lucas Yoder." Logan supplied the name. I could feel my lips quiver, so I pressed them together. I could feel my hands start to tremble, so I dropped them to my sides. I needed to stand up, otherwise, I was going to sit like a lump on the floor and start to weep for Lucas Yoder. So, I moved to pushed myself to standing. Detective Logan automatically gave me a hand up. "Mrs. Royer," Logan said, his voice soft. He could see that I was upset. Hell, someone in Alaska could probably see that I was upset.

"Detective Logan." I said his name. "Please, call me Lynne. Mrs. Royer is my mother." I don't know why I said that, the _Mrs._ seemed to age me and imply that I was married. I was neither particularly old, nor was I married. I meant the words to be light in tone, perhaps humorous. Inappropriate humor under stress is kind of a thing with me. But my words fell flat and sounded more sorrowful than humorously snarky.

"We have a few questions about Lucas Yoder," he repeated the words to me as I paced away to look out the window.

"Ok." I whispered, touching the window. I could see the sky changing to evening colors. I waited for his questions, but strangely none came. I couldn't tell if he was giving me a moment to collect myself or if he was waiting to see if I would simply start chattering nonsensically, spilling all of the random thoughts that were shooting through my brain concerning what led up to what happened to Lucas. I managed to not unload my every thought. I turned to look back at him, bracing myself for his questions.

"I understand you met with the principal this past Friday and expressed concerns about the possible abuse of Lucas Yoder." Logan jumped in with both feet. I noticed distractedly that Detective Goren was now sitting in my chair behind my desk, poking through my belongings. My eyes lingered on Goren for a moment, contemplating his strange almost halting mannerisms. He seemed completely unaware that his behavior was a bit bizarre. I was mildly annoyed that this large detective should be sitting in my space, examining my things. All of this police attention was about 24 hours too late to help Lucas Yoder.

"Yes, I met with Mr. Lawson," I said and turned my eyes back to Detective Logan.

"Could you tell me a bit about your conversation with Mr. Lawson" Logan stated in a leading way.

"I'm sorry, um, I just…" I closed my eyes, placing my fingers on the bridge of my nose, squeezing to relieve the pressure.

"Take your time," Logan placated.

"On Friday, Lucas spilled paint down the front of his shirt. He wasn't wearing one of the smocks…" I kept my eyes closed. "The paint, it was blue, Lucas loved blue, he loved the sky. He loved the idea of flying. He was always drawing birds, balloons, airplanes, everything soaring through the air. So peaceful, you know?" I opened my eyes and sighed, filling my lungs with air, trying to organize my thoughts. "So, I um, you know, had to change his shirt, the blue paint, it was all down the front. I got his clean shirt from his cubby and we went to the sink to get cleaned up. I took off his shirt, and I…" I found myself looking at the small sink in the corner. I vividly remembered standing there with Lucas.

"Ms. Royer." I jumped at the sound of Detective Goren. I was unaware that he had moved from behind my desk. He was now standing beside me, following my line of vision, as if he was trying to see what I was seeing, what I was remembering. Goren was saying my name, imploring me to continue.

"I just, um." I mumbled to myself. "Maybe, we could, uh, step out into the hall." I needed to leave the classroom. Too many images of my smiling, playing kindergartners were filling my mind, too many images of Lucas Yoder laughing and leaning in to share secrets with his friends.

I was out the door before I gave the detectives a chance to respond. I walked quickly down the hall and pushed through the double doors out into the courtyard. I breathed in the cold outside air. My feet were bare, the cold cement chilled my skin. The detectives were right behind me.

"He had bruises on his upper arms, on his ribs. I could see the fingerprint shapes in the bruises, I could see in his eyes that he was ashamed. I smiled at him and put on his clean shirt. I kissed him on the temple and told him it was OK. But you know, he knew it wasn't Ok because I told him he could go finish painting. He knew that I should've reminded him to wear a smock. He knew that normally he would not have been able to finish his painting because he had broken the rules about wearing the goddamned smock." I shuddered, struggling for a breath.

"Ms. Royer…" Detective Logan started to say something, but I cut him off. Adrenaline was storming my senses. I rounded to face both of them.

"Where the hell were you? You're both standing here with your useless damned questions. Friday was full of useless questions and useless paperwork. USELESS!" I yelled the word, and I was yelling it at myself as much I was yelling it at them. "Where were you when he needed you?" My voice was broken and hoarse, and even though I shouted the words at Detective Logan, it was Detective Goren that looked like he had just been slapped.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

"Detectives." The principal, Noah Lawson pushed himself inbetween the two large bodies of Logan and Goren. Noah grabbed a hold of me, pulling me out of the cold courtyard and back into the hallway. "I believe I requested that you not interview Ms. Royer without proper representation from the school." I watched Logan shrug, and look almost innocent.

"We must've misunderstood your instructions." Logan offered. I could tell it was a bald-faced lie.

"Lynne. Where are your shoes?" Noah asked me, the observation seemed almost humorously inconsequential, effectively taking the edge of my diatribe. I looked down at my feet, doing my best to suppress the nausea rising up in my throat from the adrenaline rapidly abating from my system.

"Principal Lawson." Detective Goren started speaking. He was moving his hands around, completely distracting me from the next thing he said. My legs felt weak, as if they could no longer hold my weight. I wanted to say something. I wanted to know how this could happen. I wanted to know what went wrong, where I went wrong. I had followed every rule. I had reported the abuse. I had talked to the correct people. They had given me the appropriate assurances. _I had believed them_. I tried to listen to the conversation between Detective Goren and Principal Lawson. I could see their lips moving, but I could not make out what they were saying. I closed my eyes and licked my dry lips. The hallway felt like it was flipping upside down around me. The last thing I felt was the hard smack of the floor against the side of my face.

* * *

"Mrs. Royer." The next time I saw Detectives Logan and Goren it was the following day. I was walking down the block and they were sitting on the stoop to my building. Well, Logan was sitting on the stoop, Goren was leaning against a low brick wall. I slowed my pace, not wanting to come upon them any sooner than I had to. In the five minutes leading up to running into them, I had not thought about what had happened to Lucas Yoder. Now, everything was flooding my insides again, the guilt, the anger, the grief.

"Lynne." I felt inexplicably exasperated. "If you cannot get anything else right, like maybe conducting an investigation while Lucas was still alive, at least you can get my name right. _My name, it's Lynne_." They both looked at me, blinking. Actually, Goren was looming, awkwardly shifting his weight from side to side. But Logan, he was definitely blinking with a bit of surprise. "What is it that you need from me Detectives?" I asked, fixing a rather saccharine smile on my face.

"What is that, um, Louisiana? Maybe the coast?" Goren asked. I shifted my eyes in his direction, now it was my turn to blink. Was he actually commenting on my accent?

"Do I sound stupid to you?" I asked, my voice honeyed with the south. New Yorkers - as soon as they heard a southern inflection, they assumed you were dumb as a stump.

"No, um, you just, uh, well you, uh… I like the sound, the sound of you, that slight drawl you have, kind of comes through when you're upset, maybe." Goren offered. _Wow_, I thought to myself, he really was quite odd. I looked at Logan, who was also looking at Goren like he was odd.

"What can I do for you detectives?" I repeated, keeping my eyes fixed on Logan. Part of me wondered if they were playing me - Goren setting me off balance with his odd remark, Logan subtly empathizing with me.

"We were hoping to talk with you a bit about Lucas Yoder." Logan remained sitting. I stood over him, looking down at him, into his pale irises.

"Ok…" I took a breath, trying to settle my frayed nerves. I thought about inviting them inside, offering them something to drink. For years, my mother had entrenched in me the necessity to extend these simple niceties. But, I was not feeling particularly nice. I reached up and touched my cheekbone, which was incredibly sore from cracking against the floor at school the previous afternoon as I had fainted dead away in front of them both.

"Are you feeling better today?" Goren asked. I rounded on him, he was so easy to get mad at, the way he moved, the way he talked, set me off.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I asked him, my mouth slightly open, amazed at his obtuse remark. "What do I have to feel better about?" I stared at him, and much to my chagrin, I could feel tears burbling up inside of me. I felt awful. I felt as if I had played things differently, Lucas might still be alive.

"You fainted." Goren stated, turning things around, making me feel stupid. He had noticed me touching my cheek, hell he probably had even noticed me wince slightly. He wasn't asking me if I felt better about my role in what happened to Lucas Yoder, he was literally asking me if I felt better, perhaps wondering if I was going to collapse again if they started pressing me with questions.

"I'm not going to faint." I looked into Goren's brown gaze. I could feel him studying me, looking inside of me, making decisions about me. So, I looked away. "At least, I don't feel faint right now." I mumbled.

"We're trying to get some information straight." Logan offered, he was now standing, pad of paper and pen in hand. Left-right, left-right, left-right, again the way he was flipping the pen held my eyes.

"Ok." I replied. "Ask me your questions." I tore my gaze away from the pen and looked into Logan's eyes.

"You met with Principal Lawson on Friday afternoon." Logan stated, and looked at me expectantly. He had not exactly asked me a question. I thought about pressing him on that point, but I refrained.

"Yes. I'd say maybe about 20 minutes after changing Lucas's shirt, I turned the class over to my teaching assistant. I went directly to Noah's office. I described what I saw and Noah immediately contacted the school nurse and the school psychologist. They asked that I bring Lucas to the nurse's office. So, I returned to my classroom, and brought Lucas to the Jackie's office. Jackie was there, waiting for Maria, our school psychologist to arrive. I left Lucas with them. He was with them for about an hour, at which time Maria brought him back to class. There were only about 30 minutes left in the school day, so he finished the day with me. Maria returned to pick him up at the end of the day, so he did not leave with the other kids and go home as usual." I breathed in deeply through my nose, feeling the air mixing with my thoughts. "After school, I went by Maria's office. I was thinking maybe I would find Lucas there, with her. But he wasn't there. Maria assured me that they were in the process of opening an investigation with the appropriate authorities. I asked about Lucas, I asked about where he was. Maria said she would be able to share more on Monday." I was looking at Detective Logan the entire time, waiting for him to look at me. He was jotting down information onto his pad of paper. When he looked up at me, I could feel my self start to shake. Something in his expression, something sympathetic, made my insides crumble. As if this case was killing him as well. "I did, you know, I did what I was supposed to do…" My words felt so incredibly lame.

"We see in September you filed a letter with Principal Lawson about your interaction with Mrs. Patricia Yoder at a parent-teacher conference." Logan replied. I could hear a slight hitch in his tone, as if he was having a difficult time sticking to the business of his questions.

"You see that?" I asked, surprised that they had information about that letter.

At the parent-teacher conference, Mrs. Yoder had clearly been intoxicated. I wasn't actually certain if she was straight-on drunk, or somehow altered by some medication or narcotic. I had drafted a memo, of sorts, documenting my concerns that Mrs. Yoder had shown up at school for a formal meeting in such a condition. I had shared it with Noah. When Noah had debriefed me about my observations, he had made it clear that I needed to be absolutely certain in terms of my allegations. Patricia Yoder was a congress person's daughter, and her family was a generous benefactor to the school, and as such, she received a certain VIP treatment. I was extremely peeved at Noah's implication that I should overlook Mrs. Yoder's clearly altered state, so I had copied both Jackie and Maria on the letter. I assumed that either Jackie or Maria had filed the letter and shared it with Detectives Logan and Goren.

"Is this connected somehow?" I whispered the words, closing my eyes. An alcoholic mother, or maybe a drug addicted mother. An abused little boy. I felt sick, slightly off balance again. Detective Goren reached out and held me by my shoulder, moving me toward the low brick wall. I placed my palms flat down against the brick, waiting for the nausea to subside.

"Have you had any other occasion to interact with Mrs. Patricia Yoder?" Logan asked. I was shaking my head no. "Have you had occasion to interact with Mr. Kevin Yoder?" Logan asked, referring to Lucas's father. I kept shaking my head no. "I don't think we have any other questions for you at this time." I changed the direction of my nodding to the yes direction, to indicate that I understood what he was saying. On the surface, Logan and Goren seemed like pure business. But in that moment, their body language conveyed something different. I could feel Goren breathing, deep and uneven. He was running his hand against the back of his neck, his angst practically palpable. I glanced at Logan, and could see his frustrations etched in his pale green eyes. They both had a personal stake in this investigation.

Before I continued inside, I watched them walk down the street, get into their car, and pull away from the curb. After they left, I noticed a brown leather zippered portfolio resting a few feet away from my hands on the low brick wall. Goren's portfolio. I wondered if Goren had left this belonging behind on purpose, an excuse of sorts to poke and prod at me some more.

TBC

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

I sat in my apartment looking at the brown zippered portfolio. Part of me wanted to look inside. Maybe he wanted me to look inside? But I refrained. I thought it was more likely that he had left it behind as an excuse to come back by. I couldn't seem to get through a conversation with Detectives Logan and Goren without fainting or feeling like I was going to get sick. I didn't understand how detectives investigating a homicide, especially that of a child, could be so emotionally distant. I couldn't imagine, day in and day out, investigating death and violence. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling ashamed at my behavior with the detectives. I was not an angry person; I actually believed in truth and justice and all of that stuff.

Impulsively, I picked up the portfolio and headed out of my apartment toward One Police Plaza. Not only did I have something of Detective Goren's to return, I also wanted to apologize and perhaps be a bit more cooperative in terms of the information they needed.

At 1PP, I was directed up to Major Case Squad. When I stepped out onto the floor, the place was buzzing with activity. I could see someone in an office, which was easy to do since the walls were glass, across the squad. He was yelling into the phone and looked undone, his curly dark hair practically standing on end. I could hear a pair of officers to my right saying that the Captain was getting royally dressed down for the direction that the Yoder case had taken, and that he had better be damned sure they were questioning the right person.

I looked around the morass of desks and officers, seeking the large broad form of either Detective Logan or Detective Goren. I figured if they were on the floor, that their size would make them easy to spot. I watched the Captain in the glass office slam the phone down onto the desk. He stormed out of his office and across the squad to a hall with a series of doors. Automatically, I followed, figuring if he was really getting raked across the coals related to the death of Lucas Yoder, he was probably making a bee line for either Detective Logan or Goren, or probably both.

I was standing a desk away when the door to one of the rooms burst open. None other than Patricia Yoder rushed through, her tearstained face contorted, dark smudges of make-up under her eyes. Her pallor was grey and she was shaking. A petite brunette followed close behind her. Next came Kevin Yoder, followed by an older gentlemen in a conservative suit who I assumed to be a lawyer. Then, Detective Logan and Goren stepped from the room. I stood frozen behind the desk, the portfolio pressed to my chest like a shield.

"He was fine, he was fine when we sent him to school. That bitch of a teacher is lying, she did this, she hurt Lucas, she's trying to hurt me, she did this." Patricia Yoder was sobbing, yelling the words, trying to twist away from the petite brunette. "You should be looking at her, not me."

I felt the air rush out of my lungs. I couldn't believe what she was saying. I thought about how Detectives Logan and Goren had shown up at my home earlier that afternoon. Had they been investigating me?

"You're under arrest for…" I could hear the petite brunette saying to Patricia Yoder. She was charging Patricia with the death of Lucas. My heart was pounding in my chest so violently I could feel the pressure in my ears. I was only dully aware that Detective Logan had come to stand beside me and was trying to pull me away. He was trying to pull me out of the fray, out of Patricia Yoder's line of vision.

"He fell down the stairs, he fell. He was running from me, he was scared to show me his bruises, scared to show me what that bitch of a teacher did to him. I didn't throw him down the stairs, I could never…" Patricia was still thrashing around, crying. _A drunk mother_. _An abused child_. The two thoughts kept cycling through my brain. "You!" She had spotted me. "You did this, you did this to me!" She screeched. I simply stared at her.

She was sick, she almost seemed convinced she had not done this horrible thing. I could hear the petite brunette rattling off the charges against her - the abuse and the death of Lucas. In what felt like slow motion, my eyes scanned the line of people. I looked away from Patricia, to the lawyer, to Kevin Yoder. It was clear to me by the horror and sadness in Kevin Yoder's eyes that he knew that his wife was guilty. I didn't know if Patricia Yoder had thrown Lucas down the stairs, or if Lucas had fallen down the stairs. Either way, it didn't matter, Lucas was dead.

I didn't even realize what I was doing when I dropped the portfolio on the floor and jumped forward across the desk. I wanted to punish the person who let this happen. I wanted to hurt the person at fault. Lucas was only 6 years old. He had his entire life to live. He wanted to fly in through the sunny blue sky. Detective Logan started to grad me before I could complete my goal. I was yelling and squirming and trying to get across the desk.

"YOU BASTARD. You did this. You knew, you knew about her, you knew what she was doing, you knew what was happening. YOU BASTARD. You let this happen. You killed him, you let him die. YOU DID THIS!" I was yelling and trying to get to Kevin Yoder. Patricia Yoder was getting charged, but Kevin Yoder was just standing there, a bystander to the arrest of his wife, just as he was a bystander in the death of his son. He was far from innocent himself. He had stood by and let this happen.

Detective Logan pulled me backward through the air and clamped me hard against his chest. I heard the rumble in his chest, so I know he was saying something but I could not understand his words. Kevin Yoder was moving, as if to get away. I watched Detective Goren move toward Kevin Yoder pressing him backward against the wall, preventing him from getting away. Goren had one forearm across Yoder's chest, the other pressed to his throat.

"You stood by. You stood by and let this happen. He was your son, your responsibility, you stood by, you did this…" I was no longer yelling or struggling. I was sobbing and trembling, I could feel Detective Logan loosen his hold. Now instead of restraining me, he was simply holding me in my grief.

Detective Goren was still pressing Kevin Yoder hard against the wall. The Captain from the glass walled office was ordering Goren to release Yoder, but Goren was not listening. I could see it in his body language, I could feel it in the way he continued to press the air out of Kevin Yoder. He was feeling what I was feeling. Kevin Yoder was just as much to blame. He knew about his wife's drunkenness, his wife's illness, and at some level he knew about the abuse. Kevin Yoder could have stepped in; he could have stepped up and changed things.

"Bobby." The petite brunette's soft voice caught Goren's attention, and Detective Goren finally let Yoder down, who was coughing and sputtering, fighting for air.

Detective Logan kept his arms around me, keeping me on my feet by holding me against his chest. At some point someone had escorted Patricia Yoder from the scene. The entire floor was deathly quiet. Some eyes on me, most eyes on Goren.

"I didn't do this, I didn't do this. She said I did this, I didn't…" I was repeating the words so quietly I thought I was the only one who could hear myself.

"She did this." I could understand what Logan was saying now. Logan stated the words flatly, referring to Patricia Yoder. "He did this…" Logan glared at Kevin Yoder, practically keeping Yoder pinned to the floor with the fierce hatred in his expression.

"Oh my god, oh my god." I mumbled. "Oh my god."

* * *

Towards the end of the school year, five months after attending the funeral for Lucas Yoder, I ran into a familiar face.

"Detective." I smiled slightly, looking at his tall outline. I was sitting in a coffee shop, nursing a very large cup of black coffee, kind of pretending to read the paper. Mainly, I was lost in my own thoughts, thinking about the past few months. My heart was still hurting over what happened with Lucas Yoder. I had changed a lot of things about how I interacted with my students, how I interacted with my co-workers within my school. For one thing, I hugged my kindergartners a whole lot more. Children need all of the hugs and love they can soak in. That went a bit against my training, for in this decade I had been trained to minimize physical contact, for fear of misinterpretation and legal action. I now ignored those practices, and let my kindergartners sit on my lap if they wanted to, hug me when they offered to, and I talked to them about their weekend plans and their dinner time meals. I also frequently opened my classroom to the parents, and planned much more direct contact with them than the required 2 parent-teacher conferences per school year. I was far less trusting of Principal Noah Lawson. I followed up on anything and everything, making certain I understood exactly what was happening in terms of school policy, especially policies that related to the welfare of my students.

"Please, sit down." I gestured to the chair opposite me. It was strangely nice to see him. I liked that he smiled at me as he pulled the chair back to join me. He had a nice smile, one that I hadn't seen before.

"So, _where are you from_?" He asked, repeating the question that I had not answered before. Again, I thought of the preconceived notions about southern accents, but this time I smiled. I was who I was, and my southerness was a major part of me.

"Louisiana, the coast." I admitted. "How about you, Detective? Where are you from?"

"New York, born and raised." He admitted, shrugging slightly. "Oh, and I have a first name, it's…"

**End**.

* * *

**A/N**: Thanks for reading.


End file.
